A Long Term Look At The Success Of Rochester Institute Of Technology Engineering Technology Graduates
- Conference
- Location
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Louisville, Kentucky
- Publication Date
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June 20, 2010
- Start Date
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June 20, 2010
- End Date
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June 23, 2010
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Engineering Technology
- Page Count
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10
- Page Numbers
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15.49.1 - 15.49.10
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--16723
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/16723
- Download Count
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534
Paper Authors
Maureen Valentine Rochester Institute of Technology
Maureen Valentine, Rochester Institute of technology
Professor Valentine, P.E., has been a faculty member at RIT for over 16 years and held the position of Department Chair for the Department of Civil Engineering Technology, Environmental Management, and Safety from 2000 to 2008. She is currently the Miller Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology. Her scholarly activities recently have focused on women in technology programs, and the female faculty who teach them.
Carol Richardson Rochester Institute of Technology
Carol Richardson, Rochester Institute of Technology
Professor Richardson is a professor of engineering technology in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Telecommunications Engineering Technology. She is currently the program chair for the electrical engineering technology program and teaches freshman courses in the department. Her scholarly activities are academic programming and services to ensure student success, curriculum development, and assessment.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
A Long-term Look at the Success of Rochester Institute of Technology Engineering Technology Graduates
Abstract
The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has collected a significant amount of historical data on the alumni of its seven engineering technology (ET) programs through surveys conducted in 1997, 2002 and again in 2009. This paper provides an analysis of the most recent 2009 data, comparisons to RIT historical data and an alignment with survey data from several other universities in the past five years. It also provides a discussion on the usefulness of alumni surveys in assessing program educational outcomes. The RIT alumni salary data obtained from all three surveys corresponds closely to salary data for engineers with job experience published by the Engineering Workforce Commission and has been a strong recruiting tool for freshman and transfer ET students. The three RIT alumni surveys document the achievements of the RIT ET graduates for the past thirty seven years and provide an assessment tool for the next RIT ABET Technology Accreditation Commission accreditation visit.
Introduction
Engineering technology and engineering programs across the United States have been using alumni surveys for years as a way of measuring success. In the past, the results of these types of surveys were historically used for benchmarking as a means of demonstrating successful career growth for graduates and identifying potential improvements for the programs. “Benchmarks for graduate salaries, job titles, graduate education, and professional certifications have been established in ET alumni surveys during the last decade at RIT, the University of Dayton, Old Dominion, Northeastern University, and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (UPJ).” 1 Work completed by Mott,2 Stanley and Verma 3 in the early 1990’s provided an effective means of gathering relevant information from an alumni pool and data by which other schools, like RIT, could benchmark to demonstrate success of those alumni.
In 2004, the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) of ABET required the use of outcomes assessment as the basis for accreditation assessment for engineering technology programs. The current TAC ABET Criteria for accrediting engineering technology programs require the following:
Criterion 2. Program Educational Objectives Each program must have in place: a. published program educational objectives that are consistent with the mission of the institution and applicable ABET criteria, b. a documented process by which the program educational objectives are determined and periodically evaluated based on the needs of constituencies served by the program, and c. an educational program, including a curriculum, that enables graduates to achieve the program educational objectives.4
Valentine, M., & Richardson, C. (2010, June), A Long Term Look At The Success Of Rochester Institute Of Technology Engineering Technology Graduates Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16723
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